I have explored this topic in the past from the perspective of the author David Richo's concept of listening to your inner trio - your head, your heart and your gut. I find this a useful framework when thinking about intuition because, I believe, we so often confuse our heart with our gut.

I've noticed a similar pattern in many of the women I've interviewed. Often, the bigness of their feelings or sense of justice in the world led them, at some point, to start tuning out their feelings, both physically and emotionally, for a while and get stuck in their heads.

Now having strong analytical skills can be a strength, but if you rely soley on you head and fail to listen to your heart or your gut, it's bound to come back at you in ways you may not expect - for me it was through physical pain and fatigue.

The way I see it, all three parts of your trio are important, but your gut is the most important and often the most ignored.

Why do we so often ignore our gut? Most often it's fear. But the funny thing is, once we really start to listen to our intuition, that fear slips away and aspects of life start happening with more ease and peace.

When all three parts of us are not fully integrated - our heart can start speaking from a place of fear and scarcity. It is understandable then, why the head would want to take over and put that fear away. But when we shut out our heart, often the gut goes with it because they work intricately together.

The difference I see between the heart and the gut is that the heart emphasises the bigness of our feelings, where the gut comes from a place of peace.

Both should be honored and listened to, but the gut rarely leads us astray.

In the past year, I experienced this with my podcast journey. I knew two years ago that this was something I was meant to do. There was a sense of clarity and peace about it. Life happened though, and due to a variety of factors, both good and challenging, it was delayed by a year. For most of that year, my chronic headaches, which had slowly been creeping back, took over to the point where I had a headache more often than not for over a year. Going back to work in the fall, it has been a super busy year, but yet I noticed that my headaches were going a way. As I started to reflect on the timing, my headaches drastically reduced right about the time I started my podcast.

I spent a year off the track of where my gut knew it needed to go, and my head answered back with constant headaches.

So if you want to connect more with your gut - start listening to what the rest of your body is telling you (often it is literally your gut). Take some time to explore that peaceful place inside of you and ask what it wants. It won't be as loud as your big heart, or your talkative mind - but it's there, quietly speaking if you take the time to listen!